Mons Kallentoft - Midwinter Sacrifice aka Midwinter Blood

‘And his teeth?’ Zeke asks.

‘In too poor a state to be useful, most of his teeth were broken.’

Karin takes hold of one of the wrists. ‘Do you see these marks here?’

Malin nods.

‘They were made by chains. That’s how they got him up into the tree.’

‘They?’

‘I don’t know. But do you imagine a single man could have done this, considering the amount of physical strength required?’

‘Not impossible,’ Malin says.

Zeke shakes his head. ‘We don’t know yet.’

The snow had concealed nothing.

The only thing Karin and her colleagues found were a few cigarette butts, a biscuit wrapper and an ice-cream wrapper that didn’t quite seem to belong in the field. Ice cream? Hardly at this time of year. And the wrappers and butts looked older, as if they’d been there several years. They, or he, or she, hadn’t left any traces behind them on the ground.

‘Did you find anything else?’

‘Nothing under the nails. No signs of a struggle. Which suggests he must have been taken by surprise. Have you had any tip-offs? Anyone who’s said anything?’

‘It’s been completely quiet,’ Malin says. ‘Nada, niente.’

‘Not missed by anyone, then,’ Karin says.

‘We don’t know that either yet,’ Zeke says.

If I were still able to talk the way you do, if I could get up and tell you, cure your deafness, I would tell you to stop with all these questions.

What good are they?

It is the way it is, it’s turned out the way it’s turned out. I know who did it, I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, had time to see death coming, slow, quick, black.

Then it went white, death.

White as freshly fallen snow. White is the colour when the brain fades, an optimistic firework burst, shorter than a breath. And then, when vision returned to me again I could see everything, I was free and unfree at the same time.

So do you really want to know?

Do you really want to hear this story? I don’t think so. It is worse, nastier, darker, more merciless than you can imagine. If you carry on from here, you are choosing a path that leads right into the heart of the place where only the body, not the soul, can live and breathe, where we are chemistry, where we are code, the place outside, where the word feeling does not exist.

At the end of the path, in an apple-scented darkness clad in white, you will find waking dreams so black that they make this winter seem warm and welcoming. But I know that you will choose that path. Because you are human beings. And that is how you are.

‘How long will it take you to fix him up?’

‘Fix him up how?’

‘Ideally we need to get his face sorted out,’ Malin says. ‘So we can give a picture to the press. So that maybe someone will realise he’s missing, or at least recognise him.’

‘I understand. I’ll phone Skoglund at Fonus funeral services. He can probably help me with a quick reconstruction. We ought to be able to come up with something decent anyway.’

‘Call Skoglund. The sooner we have a picture the better.’

‘Okay, let’s go,’ Zeke says, and from the tone of his voice Malin knows he’s had enough. Of the body, of the sterile room, but mainly of Karin Johannison.

Malin knows that Zeke thinks Karin gives herself airs and graces, and maybe he’s also put out by the fact that she doesn’t ask about Martin like everyone else does, no matter where or when. And, for Zeke, Karin’s lack of interest in ice hockey and his son has become proof that she’s arrogant. He’s clearly tired of all the questions about Martin, but is still not happy if people don’t ask.

‘Do you use spray-tan?’ Zeke asks Karin when they’re on their way out of the lab.

Malin laughs, against her will.

‘No, I use a solarium to keep up my suntan from Thailand over Christmas,’ Karin says. ‘There’s a place on Drottninggatan that does spray-tans, but I don’t know. It seems so vulgar. Maybe just my face, though.’

‘Thailand? At Christmas?’ Zeke says. ‘Isn’t that the most expensive time? I’ve heard that people who really know Thailand go at other times.’

‘Malin, have you watered the plants? They won’t make it through the winter otherwise.’

The question is so obvious, Malin thinks, that there was really no need to ask it. And the explanation just as unnecessary: his tendency to be overtly pedagogical to promote his own interests.

‘I’m on my way to your flat to do it now.’

‘Haven’t you done it already?’

‘Not since we last spoke, no.’

She got the call just as she was leaving Police Headquarters, waiting for a green light at the corner of the cemetery and the old fire station. The Volvo had deigned to start today, even though it was just as cold.

It was like she knew it was Dad by the way the phone rang. Annoyed, lovable, demanding, self-centred, kind: give me all your attention, I’m not giving up until you answer, I’m not interrupting anything, am I?

The meeting of the investigating team had been largely concerned with waiting.

Waiting for Börje Svärd who was late, something to do with his wife.

Waiting for someone to ask about Nysvärd’s broken arm, injured when the body fell from the tree.

‘On sick-leave for two and half weeks,’ Sven Sjöman said. ‘He seemed cheerful enough when I spoke to him, just a bit shaken up still.’

‘It’s a bit bloody macabre, having a hundred-and-fifty-kilo frozen-solid corpse land on you,’ Johan Jakobsson said.

Then waiting for someone to say what they all knew. That they had nothing to go on. Waiting for Skoglund the funeral director to finish his work, get the picture taken and sent out.

Börje: ‘What was it I said? That no one would recognise him from those first pictures.’

Waiting for waiting itself, all energy sucked out of tired police officers who know that the case is urgent but who can do little but throw up their hands and say, ‘We’ll see!’ When every citizen, every journalist, wants to hear the police recount what happened, and who did it.

Waiting for Karim Akbar, who was late as well, if only late answering the phone out in his villa in Lambohov. Waiting for his son’s stereo to be turned down in the background, then waiting for Karim’s voice to stop resounding from the speakerphone.

‘This isn’t good enough, you know that perfectly well. Sven, you’ll have to arrange another press conference tomorrow where you let them know what we’ve got so far. That’ll calm them down.’

And you get another chance to show off, Malin thinks. Then: but you do stand there and soak up the questions, the aggression, and make sure we can work in peace and quiet. And you do stand for something, Karim. You understand the power of the group when everyone has a well-defined role.

Sven’s tired words after Karim had hung up. ‘If only we were like Stockholm. With our own press officer.’

‘You’re the one who’s been on the media management course,’ Zeke said. ‘Couldn’t you do it?’

Laughter. Release. Sven: ‘I’m close to getting my pension and you want to throw me to the hyenas, Zeke? Thanks a lot.’

The red light turns green, the Volvo hesitates then rolls off along Drottninggatan into the city.

‘How’s Mum doing, Dad? The plants are fine, I promise.’

‘She’s having a nap. It’s twenty-five degrees and glorious sunshine down here. How is it up there?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Yes I do.’

‘Well I’m not going to tell you, Dad.’

‘Well, it’s sunny here in Tenerife, anyway. How’s Tove?’

‘She’s with Jan-Erik.’